Thursday, August 31, 2006

Watching My Weight

I think I'm going to pay a visit to the local Weight Watchers group. I need a refresher course. My version of the plan has included Peanut Buster Parfaits every night and lots of real Coke. And it hasn't been extremely effective. I'm afraid to get on the scale and find out what the actual number is. I do have an exercise plan forming in the back of my mind. Several places here in town offer a Cardio Kickboxing class. Brian and I took one in Abilene that we really adored. We secretly referred to the instructor as Mistress because we felt certain that she was doing this as a "day" job, but that her real work was doing something else.... It was the perfect stress relief at the end of a regular day, not to mention the benefit at the end of a stressful day.

Brian can go to the workout center at the plant for about $20 a month. My 30th birthday is creeping up on me and I'm not going to look like this or feel like this when I'm there. This is no way to live.

This & That

It's 10am in the morning and I'm still sitting around in my pajamas. Except pajamas indicates pants of some kind, doesn't it? I don't think FlyLady would approve. I definitely don't have my shoes on...and hair and make-up done? That's some sort of girly fantasy. My bed is not made and I haven't swished or swiped anything. I hope the maintenace man doesn't decide to stop by...he'll get a big surprise if he does. For some reason, I cannot get my life organized here. I manage to look pulled together by the time Brian gets here, but only just. The girls are pretty much on a schedule/routine, but I can't seem to put myself on one. I've been doing okay in keeping the house picked up, but here, it's an absolute necessity. Taking care of myself, well, that's just another thing all together.

I have spent the whole morning on the phone with a collection agency and our insurance company. It was not pretty. The good thing is that the insurance company and I are on the same page. The bad thing is that it's not the same page as the collection agency. When I reviewed the Statement of Benefits, I realized why I haven't paid the bill. The bill we got from the hospital (and subsequently, the collection agency) and what the insurance company is saying we owe, aren't the same thing. In fact, it's about $100 off. Except I've already gone ahead and paid the bill sent by the collection agency. In addition, we received a nasty gram from the collection agency some time back for $6 that we owed for Lily at some point in the distant past. I never received a bill for that, blah, blah, blah, but I went ahead and mailed a payment to the collection agency for $6.00. Except apparenly, this account has been passed on...

This story sounded much more interesting in my head....

We went to church last night. Their Fellowship Suppers last from 5:30pm until church starts at 7:00pm. That was really nice. The food was really good with huge portions and it was cheap...$2/a plate. One of the things that I liked was that the pastor told the entire church on Sunday that the ladies that did the cooking and meal prep did not need to be doing the cleaning up. The deacons and men needed to set an example and help clean up. And Brian did. The more that we go, the more that I like it there. Brian still wants to visit other churches, but somehow that seems wrong to me. We would definitely be challenged here and I think that we need that.

Brian and I are getting new cell phones. Brian's brother works for T-Mobile in Plano and he is getting us great deals. Brian is getting a free Blackberry and I am getting a pink Razr. Brian laughs at me because he knows that I hate pink. Now before anyone gets their hackles up wondering how anyone in the world could possibly hate pink...it's just not me. That's for girly-girls and I am definitely not a girly-girl. But I like things that are different and how many cell phones do you see around that are pink? With the free phones, it's either pink or silver and I just don't want something that everyone else has.

Yuck! I just had to kill a cricket in front of Lily and not act like I was totally creeped out. I have an unhealthy, irrational fear of grasshoppers (not like the pickle girl on the Maury show...which, by the way was on this week!), but enough that screaming and flailing will occur if I see one. And in my opinion, crickets are closely related. It's enough that I'm completely neurotic...I don't really want to pass that on to my girls!

Tuesday, August 29, 2006

We have settled in, more or less. I've had to do some extremely creative things in terms of finding a place for everything. (One creative thing involved carrying the item to the dumpster.) We are definitely not used to living this small. Well, with the kids, anyway. I have decided that there is a fine line between cramped and cozy. Brian says it's crozy...I think it's crazy. Well, that's how I felt with 500 boxes stacked up to the ceiling in every available spot. Since we have moved in, I have only cooked one meal. I have not worked out (completely) the girls' new schedule. For the first time ever, I was wishing that Darcy was ready to go to one nap a day.

We have found a church that I think will end up meeting our needs. This church is full of the one of the things that we are growing to love about this town....everyone is so very friendly. They're friendly at McDonalds (that girl was downright bubbly) and really know the meaning of the word (phrase?) Customer Service at......Wal-Mart. No, really. It was at Wal-Mart. Two guys carried my groceries out and loaded them up in the car...and said it was "their pleasure". Amazing.

The church is growing and seems to be about the size of our other church which is pretty amazing in itself because this town has about 18,000 people, and this is not one of the biggest churches in town. They have every kind of ministry that you could possibly think of and they are really seeking God's will. Brian doesn't want to commit to them until we visit some other churches, but even if we do visit some place else, I think we'll end up back here.

The girls finally are asleep...for some reason Lily can't take a nap without a spanking these days. Oh, here's a very funny story. Lily has taken to removing some of her clothes when she is in bed. Sometimes it's just her short or shoes or her shirt. Last night, after the girls had gone to sleep and before Brian and I were going to bed, I went in there to cover them up. I pulled back the cover on Lily and she was as naked as she could be!!! She had taken her nightgown off and her diaper. Needless to say, we had to get her up, dress her again and change the bed. Imagine my surpise to see that child naked as a jaybird under that blanket. It gave me a laugh that I definitely needed.